How to Save Money by Rejecting Long-Term Cell Phone Plan

Currently, there are many cell phone service providers and many types of cell phone plans. Cell phone plans include pay-as-you-go, prepaid and long-term contract. Almost all mobile phone companies will try to sell you a long-term contract because most of their income comes from long-term contracts. Customers with long-term contracts are in obligation to stay with the cell phone company for at least two years. Early termination is allowed if you pay a very high fee. Here are some steps that you can follow to avoid long-term cell phone contracts and save money.

Study your cell phone bills for the last six months and note down the minutes you used each month. If there was a one-time emergency situation that resulted in very high level of cell phone usage, ignore the bill that includes this emergency. Take the highest minutes from all the bills and round the number to the next hundreds. For example, if your highest usage is 430 minutes, the rounded number will be 500 minutes. With this information in hand, shop around and find the cheapest cell phone service for the minutes you need. Always, try to avoid long-term contract. The cell phone service rates are changing rapidly, if you sign up for a long-term contract, you will not be able to take advantage of better deals.

Limited cell phone usage: If you use your cell phone for occasional purposes only and use limited number of minutes, you may try the pre-paid plan from TracFone available online or in Wal-Mart. Their non-contract plan starts from 9.99 per month.

New cell phone users: If you are brand new in using cell phone service, we suggest that you start with a pre-paid service. This will give you an idea about the number of minutes you will need each month. After a while, if you find that your current pre-paid plan is not enough, you may re-evaluate based on your current usage and find a better plan.

Companies offering non-contract services: Virgin Mobile, MetroPCS, Cricket Communications, Boost Mobile, and Straight Talk provide no-contract cell phone services. You should contact each of these companies and pick the best plan for you.

The steps listed above show you what you need to do to avoid long-term cell phone contract and save money.